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Renaldo Rosso
'''Renaldo Rene Rosso '''was a famed researcher of the Meta-Gene and father of Fernando Rosso. He was the founder of The Life Foundation. Basic Information Name Renaldo Rene Rosso Age 57 (Deceased) Race Human Physical Traits At fifty-seven, Renaldo's age was beginning to show. His once vibrant auburn hair had dulled, and he had begun to go gray at the temples. The stern lines on his face had begun to deepen into wrinkles, and he had taken to wearing thick bifocals to stem the loss of sight. Nonetheless, he had a certain fatherly appeal about him, some likening his appearance to the late Bing Crosby. He was reasonably tall at 6' even, and though he had the slightly paunchy body of a scientist, his appreciation for sharp dress suits gave him an admirable presence of strength. Personality Renaldo strongly believed in the inherent good of human beings, and as such, was always working hard to find ways to help them. He saw technology as a gateway to a brighter tomorrow, burying himself in his work in the hope that his inventions could improve the standard of living for all human beings. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm for his work did not carry over into his social life. Though he cut a dashing figure and had a certain talent with words, he was often noted to be aloof and distant. It was commonly asserted that even if he was looking you right in the eye, you did not have his full attention; more than likely, he was working on an experiment in his head, completely ignoring the world around him. Origin Up by His Bootstraps Much of Renaldo's family history was lost during his immigration to the United States from Italy at the age of eleven (Renaldo would later claim that the Rosso's were a family of nobles that eventually fell from grace and ended with Renaldo himself, though no documentation of a family line by the name of Rosso was ever found). He was placed in foster care until the age of seventeen, when he went to work at a munitions factory almost immediately. He showed great technological aptitude, taking apart broken down assembly line machines and reassembling them for great efficiency in a matter of hours. He quickly parlayed this talent into a position in the Research and Development of the company that owned the factory, Stanton Munitions. In a few short years, he had risen through the ranks to become Vice President of the company. The Life Foundation When Eli Stanton died in 1955, Renaldo became the president of Stanton Munitions, at which point he immediately shifted focus from the development of traditional weapons to researching new technologies. By 1965, Stanton Munitions had become The Life Foundation, and was swiftly becoming known for its amazing, but ultimately unmarketable, inventions, devices like the Uranium Powered Personal Starcraft and Hand-Operated Shrinking Ray. Realizing that the public was not yet ready for the advanced ideas he had in his head, Renaldo again shifted the focus of the company, this time turning to a field of science that was new and largely unexplored: Genetics. Discovery of The Meta-Gene In 1967, Renaldo discovered a section of the human genome that did not seem to match any other gene that had yet been discovered. The gene was dormant, buried under years of evolutionary processes, and seemed to be a variable in that until its activation, it could represent any number of changes in the human being carrying the gene. Upon further examination of the gene, it was discovered that if activated, it could potentially trigger in its carrier the ability to perform superhuman feats. Extreme muscle tissue growth that could conceivably give someone the ability to lift cars with ease; rapid cellular regeneration that could allow a wounded soldier to grow back a lost limb and survive multiple bullet wounds; an "anti-gravity occipital lymph node" in the base of the brain that could allow a person to defy gravity and fly like a bird; all these were possible with this mysterious gene that evolution had deemed unnecessary. Renaldo immediately set to work on discovering a method to activate the mystery gene, which he had dubbed the Meta-Gene. The Boom By 1970, Renaldo had developed a serum that could coax the dormant Meta-Gene into activating, but by this point, further research had determined that the gene was becoming less "dormant" with each successive generation. At the rate the gene was emerging in the human race, it seemed possible that babies born with fully active Meta-Genes, beings Renaldo had dubbed Meta-Humans, would begin to be born regularly as early as 1985. Further genetic curves stipulated that by the year 2000, one in every five thousand newborns would possess an active Meta-Gene, a shocking estimation by all accounts. In essence, Renaldo had predicted the Meta-Human Boom that would eventually befall Gaia. In preperation, Renaldo shifted the focus of The Life Foundation one final time, this time moving into the study of the Meta-Gene. Renaldo had made up his mind; when these Meta-Humans began to appear, the world would be ready and waiting to accept them. The Final Years By 1990, Renaldo had been married and divorced in the short span of two years and was left with a year old son, Fernando, to take care of. His intensive work meant that he never had much time for the boy, and so passed the reigns of raising the child on to the family butler, Maxwell Duggle. Fernando had learned to walk and talk at two, was reading at three, and had built his first machine, a small robot, by five; Renaldo may not have had much to do with raising the boy, but he knew potential when he saw it. Fernando was turning out to be as smart as he had been, if not smarter. Renaldo began to teach the boy the ins and outs of business at the age of five, and within a year, Fernando was a fully paid employee of The Life Foundation. Years later, at the age of eleven, Fernando had become a junior executive, second in power only to Renaldo himself. Renaldo had begun to grow wary of the boy's frighteningly fierce ambition; though only a child, Fernando was clearly jockeying for a position from which he could wrest control of The Life Foundation from his father. Renaldo began to avoid Fernando at home, and he was careful to keep all of his most sensitive documents and formulas out of the boy's hands. The rivalry came to a head in the Winter of 2003, when Fernando killed his father with an explosive combination of chemicals and thermite, staging the murder as a lab accident. With no obstacles left to him, Fernando took over control of The Life Foundation, completely rearranging the company's structure and all but erasing Renaldo's legacy.